Do something you are proud of

Many stories begin with a phone call from concerned parents. And it all started in 2006, says Marco Mout, when he took a youngster under his wing for the first time. The mother of Mathijs Wissink called, a 17-year-old boy who was not well at the time. Mathijs was lethargic. Could Malt mean anything to him?

At this time, Mut spent his days in the 13th century powder tower at Zutphen, where he had established a carpentry workshop. He made large wooden statues there. And yes, he really wanted to meet Mathijs. He was allowed to report the next morning.

“I was very introverted back then,” says Mathijs himself. ‘Preferably sitting in front of a PC or TV. And I didn’t enjoy it very much. I had dreams, but I didn’t believe I could make them come true.

Mout showed him around the powder tower, he showed Mathijs the wooden wolf head he was working on at the time and soon they were talking about what the boy would like to make himself: a taiko, such a big Japanese drum.

Go ahead, Mut said, even though it was not an easy task. You had to have a tree trunk, dig it out and then stretch a skin over it. But Mathijs seemed serious, so he had to try.

After learning how to sharpen knives, chisels and gouges in the first few months – and also making a small drum – Mathijs bought a piece of beechwood weighing a thousand kilos. He managed to bring the wood up to the powder tower and began to hollow out the trunk with a large chisel, the trick being to keep the wood from cracking.

Mout brainstormed with him, encouraged him and challenged him to find solutions to the problems he encountered during the project. “He gave me a lot of confidence,” says Mathijs. ‘It’s typical for Marco. And children grow from that. Then they turn out to be able to do a lot more than you think.

After six months of work, the taiko was ready. When they hit him in the Powder Tower, the dust flew off the beams. ‘It was the first time in my life’, says Mathijs now, ‘that I had done something I was proud of.’

Later, he showed the taiko to a Japanese drumming group that toured the Netherlands. They were impressed. Mathijs himself also played with the taiko on several occasions, as a member of a percussion group.

“According to my mother, Marco got me moving again,” says Mathijs, who is now 33 and works as a teacher and carpenter. “If you do cool things, you find joy in life.”